Tuesday, February 22, 2011

From the FreeP: Matchup important despite lack of impact on AE rankings

By Luke Coughlan/DFP Staff

When the Boston University men’s basketball team left Agganis Arena on Saturday following a 70-62 win over Canisius College, its status in the world of college basketball, for all intents and purposes, was exactly the same as it was a few hours earlier when it arrived at the Greek for warm -ups.

The Terriers’ final home game of the regular season was against a non-conference opponent at a point in the year when conference games are the only contests that have a tangible effect on BU’s postseason trajectory.

Even after the bout, BU still finds itself stamped with a 10-4 America East Conference record. It still sits squarely between University of Vermont and University of Maine in the conference standings, a position that likely will not change, and it still faces a route to the NCAA tournament that would require an AE championship.

The AE tournament is arranged entirely based on conference performance, and even in the case of a tie between two teams’ conference records at the end of the regular season, the deadlock is broken based on head-to-head records between those two teams. In other words, an AE team’s non-conference record is worth nothing when it comes to the postseason.

Considering the circumstances, the 40 minutes of tough basketball that the Terriers played against the Griffins this late in the season could be deemed a wasted effort. But BU coach Patrick Chambers didn’t look at it that way.

Read more at www.dailyfreepress.com

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